#64: find my friends
also, a cookie recipe you need to make asap and a video of timmy singing
hi hi hi sisters ♡ holy cow it is mid-december and I have a couple of BUSY days ahead. I have a final that I need to get done, some 8-9 hour babysitting days, and I need to pack and see SUFFS before I leave new york for the holidays hehe
lots to do so lets dive right in !! (and its the deep end because we are talking about friend groups)
keeping the recommendations section to recommendations for different substacks that I read. I find it to be really important to support small “businesses” (that sounds odd to use here, but maybe influencers is another word I can use?) and one way I can do that is by sharing about them!
this week i’m sharing
by katie stone. plant based is a wellness commentary substack. katie is a brand / creative strategist, avid consumer, and wellness and beauty nerd. she writes commentary on the wellness and beauty industry, shares honest reviews from brands we all buy, asks experts in the field some FAQs, and also interviews people and deep dives into their fridges and lives.I personally don’t know much about wellness (but like I do in some ways because its a trillion dollar business and surrounds me everywhere) and this has been a fun substack to learn more from!
movies: on the airplane back to new york I watched hairspray, oh my goodness what a FANTASTIC movie. like WOWZA, performances of a lifetime for real. I also watched a nonsense christmas with sabrina carpenter hehe her netflix special was perfection, no notes, expect I need it to be twice as long. also watched my king kevin mcallister in home alone, I love him. did some crafts with kayla and watched the silly lindsay lohan christmas netflix movie our little secret. it was just what you’d expect. and to end on the highest of high notes for the week, I went with some friends to the movies to see interstellar in imax and HOLY SHIT. if you were like me and hadn’t seen this movie since it came out, or if its even been anytime over 6 months since you’ve last seen it, take the time and watch it now. that movie is beautiful, made us sob, made me feel hopeful and existential (not that hard) and it was just truly such a wonderful experience. captivating.
music: i’m working on making playlists and expanding my music taste !!!
in my stomach: if you’ve never had alison roman’s salted chocolate chunk shortbread cookies, do yourself a solid and make them. they are SO good. its a very forgiving dough. if its too crumbly and not coming together, add some cold water until it does. I feel like I mess it up in a different way every time, but they come out delicious !!! its a perfect wintertime cookie.
I want to preface this conversation with a caveat, but I also dont want to diminish my feelings and my experiences that I have had, but I want it to be known that because of my experiences that I have learned a lot about myself, friends, the dynamic of friendship groups, and I have found my people along the way. a lot of these scenarios used to make me really really really sad and I have cried from all of it, sometimes it still stings, as friendships are a sensitive and touchy subject to me and many others, but its also been a big learning and stretching and growing experience.
so, lets dive into friend group talk shall we? growing up I did not have a friend group. I had individual friends throughout my life. my first time experiencing somewhat of a friend group was during my study abroad in college. granted this was somewhat of a forced situation as you only had 80 people to make friends with, and naturally groups will form within the 80 of you. HOWEVER, I wasnt alone in this, I hopped from group to group and made friends with people in almost every group there was, but I also did have my main group of 5-9 friends, of which I am still friends with some of them today. that being said, that group is now only 3 strong, but there are others from my study abroad that I am also very close with ♡
post-study abroad, in college, I had a friend group with my roommates and the boys in our ward, of which the girlies are still a group and friends today. but I did move away from them to new york and they continued to live together for another 2 years, which was really hard for me, both because as you’ll read, the first year in new york I struggled to find where I “belonged” but also because time allows friendship to grow and flourish and distance makes that a little more complicated. they were able to bond in a way that i will never have the opportunity for, and that will stick for a long time. also with friend groups, i’ve learned, there are people who are closer to each other in the beginning and that closeness can change throughout time, which is fine and normal, but interesting to observe and navigate.
now, in new york city. this is where the bulk of knowledge and experience with friend groups has come from. i’ve been iced out by roommates, brought into a friend group and then subsequently been forgotten within the friend group, rejected from another, seen my closer knit group fall apart, come together, and fall apart again, and so on… the mormon and mormon adjacent world is a tight knit group and it gets dramatic and tangled and complicated and a lot of hurt feelings happen. you know other people’s business without even trying to learn and find my friends reveals your deepest and darkest secrets and fears, its like your own personal magic 8 ball. instead of shaking you just open up and the answer to your question of “are my friends hanging out without me” is blatantly clear across your screen. SO FUN !!!
there was once a time where everyone was invited to everything (bday parties, park picnics, walks through the park, etc) and it was so fun and lovely and I felt included. I don’t know what switched but at some point that stopped, people broke off and I was kind of left out, not from everyone, and thats where some individual friendships have flourished, but as to a group setting, I was no longer part of le big group. and not gonna lie, it brings back your worst fears from childhood of feeling like you can’t make friends, that you aren’t wanted, and that you’re a totally big LOSER (I know i’m not but our minds are a funny thing okay). the people that I had spent time celebrating and hanging out with, aren’t the people I can count on to celebrate me. there was a moment that I realized that things were shifting, it was right when I got into law school, I texted a couple of group of people saying i was getting ice cream to celebrate, and only alyssa came with me, no one else. people are quick to text congratulations or happy birthday, but actions speak louder than words. and i’ve found that that giant group, isnt the group for me. there have been a couple of individual friends that i’ve pulled out and have become extremely close with and i’m so so so so so GRATEFUL for them, but the group as a whole I realized was not for me, and thats okay. it was hella hard in the moment, but with time, a lot of things feel better.
which leads me to today (for sanity and sake of time and emotions, we arent reflecting on everything else that has happened in the past couple of years with expanding and declining friend groups and how friend breakups also really impact them)…. I dont have a friend “group” per say- where my people are also each other’s people, if that makes sense. but I have friends that I have curated into my own little network, there are some people from some groups and others are from the same. some individuals that I only really see on my own, not in group settings, which I honestly love. I love one on one time with people. its where I thrive. my “group” spans the country, it goes from coast to coast, and even international. and thats really fucking special. to know that there are people all around that care about me, like brings me to tears to think about honestly, and yes its been a hard learning experience. and i’m not perfect. i’m not perfect at including everyone, all the time. there’s only so much one individual can do, only so far we can stretch. there are a couple of people in the city that I feel like i’ve tried to reach out to and be a friend to and its not always taken like I want it to be, and thats okay.
I remember I visited my aunt in chicago a couple of years ago, shes only 6 years older than me, so shes a person I ask a lot of advice from, like an older sister. anyways I asked her “do friendships ever get less complicated?” and she said “no” and while that is kind of a hard pill to swallow, like damn I thought I was leaving complicated behind in high school, its also reassuring because its a reminder that we are all human. we are all fickle. we are all trying to belong and feel like we have a place in the world. and along the way we are going to fumble and fall and be disjointed. people move, people get married or get into a relationship, which then causes other people to get closer and so on. its silly of us to expect that all friendships and friend groups should remain exactly the same as it was because we are not exactly the same over time. I am a very different person than I was last year, or the year before, or 5 years before that, or 5 years from now. our priorities change, our capacity of energy changes, and thats okay.
its really hard to learn, and i’m far far far from learning it all or even being perfect at it. life is messy and its hard and having a support system that looks picturesque seems SO NICE and seems like it will solve all of life’s problems, but it won’t. but having a network of people, whether they are connected seamlessly with one another or not, helps make life a little better and more manageable. and that’s what i’ll say about friend groups.
tiktok: elon musk’s wealth is disgusting
pinterest: comfort colors in a way; dream job
instagram: god bless this man; and this little man too
woof, I never want to touch the subject of friend groups again with a 10 foot pole, that took a lot out of me haha. I started writing about this months ago and its been in my mind all the time since them. happy to have gotten it down on “paper” but its a hard and touchy and sensitive subject to me. I sometimes feel like I am the sole reason I’ve never had a friend group, but that is giving myself way too much power. so I just take it for what it is, and thats life baby. LOVE YOU ALL !!!!
loved this one and love you!!!